Blagojevich ousted 59-0

Friday

Jan 30, 2009 at 12:01 AMJan 30, 2009 at 1:34 PM

SPRINGFIELD, Ill. -- The Illinois Senate voted to remove Democratic Gov. Rod Blagojevich from office yesterday, marking the first time in the state's long history of political corruption that a chief executive has been impeached and convicted.

SPRINGFIELD, Ill. -- The Illinois Senate voted to remove Democratic Gov. Rod Blagojevich from office yesterday, marking the first time in the state's long history of political corruption that a chief executive has been impeached and convicted.

The 59-0 vote followed several hours of public deliberation in which senator after senator stood up to blast Blagojevich, whose tenure lasted six years. And it came after a four-day impeachment trial on allegations that Blagojevich abused his power and sold his office for personal benefit.

The conviction on a sweeping article of impeachment meant the governor was immediately removed from office. The Senate also unanimously voted to impose the "political death penalty" on Blagojevich, banning him from ever again holding office in Illinois.

Blagojevich, accused of trying to sell Barack Obama's vacant Senate seat, becomes the first U.S. governor in more than 20 years to be removed by impeachment.

Blagojevich's name and picture were promptly stripped from the state's official Web site, and his photo was removed from a display at the Capitol entrance. Quinn also canceled Blagojevich's security detail.

Obama pledged to give Quinn his full cooperation.

"Today ends a painful episode for Illinois," Obama said last night in a statement.

Earlier, Blagojevich had offered his own sprawling, passionate closing argument after ignoring a Senate impeachment trial all week in order to take his case to the nation on the talk-show circuit.

Alternately praising and upbraiding those who ultimately decided his political fate, the foul-mouthed Blagojevich yesterday urged the Senate not to remove him from office, saying he had "done absolutely nothing wrong" and "never, ever intended to violate the law."

"There hasn't been a single piece of information that proves any wrongdoing," Blagojevich said to senators who were mostly stoic. "How can you throw a governor out of office with insufficient and incomplete evidence?"

Blagojevich warned senators against setting a "dangerous precedent."

"Imagine what future governors will face if I'm thrown out of office for this," Blagojevich said.

Senators dismissed the governor's plea, saying Blagojevich violated the public trust and paralyzed state government.

"He reminded us today in real detail that he is an unusually good liar," state Republican Sen. Matt Murphy said. "We bent over backwards to make sure that this process was fair."

House prosecutor David Ellis attacked Blagojevich's speech in his rebuttal argument.

"When the camera's on, the governor is for the little guy, the little people. When the camera's off, what are his priorities?" Ellis asked, pointing behind him to a poster board with transcripts of intercepted phone conversations.

Blagojevich decried a "rush to judgment."

"I'm here to talk to you, to appeal to you, to your sense of fairness," Blagojevich told senators. "I'm asking you as I speak to you today to imagine yourself walking in my shoes."

Blagojevich also defended his decision to try to import lower-cost prescription drugs from Canada as an attempt to help people.

"If you're impeaching me, then we need to impeach the governors of Wisconsin, of Kansas, of Vermont," because all of them also were interested in his Canadian drug plan.

While we're at it, Blagojevich said, they should "reach into the U.S. Senate and remove John McCain and Ted Kennedy" because they supported the idea at the time.

Blagojevich also said the Senate should demand that Obama fire his chief of staff, Rahm Emanuel, because Emanuel "gave me the idea" when he was a congressman from Illinois' 5th District.

"If you're going to get rid of me, why do they get to stay in office?" Blagojevich asked.

The governor with the helmet of dark, thick hair also rambled at points, dropping names during unrelated tangents. He recalled being a rookie congressman and meeting Virginia Sen. John Warner, whom he noted was married to actress Elizabeth Taylor. Warner mistook Blagojevich for a staff member and asked him to fetch a coffee, the governor recalled.

The House prosecutor spent 45 minutes outlining evidence he said was more than enough to convict the governor. He often quoted from federal criminal charges released Dec. 9, the day Blagojevich was arrested at his North Side home.

"Every decision this governor made was based on one of three criteria," Ellis said. "The governor's legal situation, his personal situation and his political situation."

The senators, in criticizing Blagojevich, sprinkled their remarks with historical references, including Pearl Harbor's "day of infamy" and "The whole world is watching" chant from the riots that broke out during the 1968 Democratic National Convention in Chicago. They cited Abraham Lincoln, the Martin Luther King Jr. and Jesus as they called for the governor's removal.

Information from the Associated Press was included in this story.

Never miss a story

Choose the plan that's right for you.
Digital access or digital and print delivery.